Stephen King - Dolores Claiborne

“Are you gonna drink it or just admire it?” I ast him.

He give me a look, kinda suspicious, and says, “Just what the hell is this, Dolores?”

“It’s a present to celebrate the eclipse,” I said. “If you don’t want it, I c’n always pour it down the sink.”

I made as if to reach for it n he yanked it back real quick.

“You been givin me one helluva lot of presents just lately,” he says. “We can’t afford stuff like this, eclipse or no eclipse.” That didn’t stop him from gettin out his pocket-knife and slittin the seal, though; didn’t even seem to slow him down.

“Well, to tell you the truth, it’s not just the eclipse,” I says. “I’ve just been feelin so good and so relieved that I wanted to share some of my happiness. And since I’ve noticed that most of what seems to make you happy comes out of a bottle…”

I watched him take the cap off n pour himself a knock. His hand was shakin a little bit, and I wasn’t sorry to see it. The raggeder he was, the better my chances would be.

“What have you got to feel good about?” he asks. “Did somebody invent a pill to cure ugly?”

“That’s a pretty mean thing to say to someone who just bought you a bottle of premium Scotch,” I said. “Maybe I really should take it back.” I reached for it again and he pulled it back again.

“Fat chance,” he says.

“Then be nice,” I told him. “What happened to all that gratitude you were s’posed to be learnin in your A.A.?”

He never minded that, just went on lookin at me like a store-clerk tryin to decide if someone’d passed him a phony ten. “What’s got you feelin so goddam good?” he asks again. “It’s the brats, isn’t it? Havin em outta the house.”

“Nope, I miss em already,” I said, and it was the truth, too.

“Yeah, you would,” he says, n drinks his drink. “So what is it?”

“I’ll tell you later,” I says, n starts gettin up.

He grabbed my arm and said, “Tell me now, Dolores. You know I don’t like it when you’re fresh.”

I looked down at him and says, “You better take your hand off me, or that expensive bottle of hooch might end up gettin broke over your head. I don’t want to fight with you, Joe, especially not today. I’ve got some nice salami, some Swiss cheese, and some water-biscuits.”

“Water-biscuits!” he says. “Jesus wept, woman!”

“Never mind,” I says. “I’m gonna make us a tray of hors d’oeuvres every bit as nice as the ones Vera’s guests are gonna have out on the ferry.”

“Fancy food like that gives me the shits,” he says. “Never mind any hosses’ ovaries; just make me a sandwich. ”

“All right,” I agreed. “I will.”

He was lookin toward the reach by then—probably me mentionin the ferry’d put him in mind of it—with his lower lip poochin out in that ugly way it had. There were more boats out there than ever, and it looked to me like the sky over em had lightened up a little bit. “Lookit em!” he says in that sneerin way of his—the one his youngest son was tryin so goddam hard to copy. “Ain’t nothin gonna happen that’s any more’n a thunderhead goin across the sun, and they’re all just about shootin off in their pants. I hope it rains! I hope it comes down s’hard it drowns that snooty cunt you work for, and the rest of em, too!”

“That’s my Joe,” I says. “Always cheery, always charitable. ”

He looked around at me, still holdin that bottle of Scotch curled against his chest like a bear with a chunk of honeycomb. “What in the name of Christ are you runnin on about, woman?”

“Nothin,” I says. “I’m going inside to fix the food—a sandwich for you and some hors d’oeuvres for me. Then we’ll sit n have a couple of drinks n watch the eclipse—Vera sent down a viewer and a reflector-box thingamajig for each of us—and when it’s over, I’ll tell you what’s got me feeling so happy. It’s a surprise.”

“I don’t like fucking surprises,” he says.

“I know you don’t,” I told him. “But you’ll get a kick out of this one, Joe. You’d never guess it in a thousand years.” Then I went into the kitchen so he could really get started on that bottle I’d bought him at the greenfront. I wanted him to enjoy it—I really did. After all, it was the last liquor he was ever gonna drink. He wouldn’t need A.A. to keep him off the sauce, either. Not where he was goin.

That was the longest afternoon of my life, and the strangest, too. There he was, sittin on the porch in his rocker, holdin the paper in one hand and a drink in the other, bitchin in the open kitchen window at me about somethin the Democrats were tryin to do down in Augusta. He’d forgot all about tryin to find out what I was happy about, and all about the eclipse, as well. I was in the kitchen, makin him a sandwich, hummin a tune, and thinkin, “Make it good, Dolores—put on some of that red onion he likes and just enough mustard to make it tangy. Make it good, cause it’s the last thing he’s ever gonna eat.”

From where I was standin, I could look out along the line of the woodshed and see the white rock and the edge of the blackberry tangle. The handkerchief I’d tied to the top of one of the bushes was still there; I could see that, too. It went noddin back n forth in the breeze. Every time it did, I thought of that spongy wellcap right under it.

I remember how the birds sang that afternoon, and how I could hear some of the people out on the reach yellin back and forth to each other, their voices all tiny and far—they sounded like voices on the radio. I can even remember what I was hummin: “Amazin Grace, how sweet the sound.” I went on hummin it while I made my crackers n cheese (I didn’t want em any more’n a hen wants a flag, but I didn’t want Joe wonderin why I wasn’t eatin, either).

It must have been quarter past two or so when I went back out on the porch with the tray of food balanced on one hand like a waitress and the bag Vera’d give me in the other. The sky was still overcast, but you could see it really had gotten quite a bit lighter.

That was a good little feed, as things turned out. Joe wasn’t much for compliments, but I could see from the way he put down his paper n looked at his sandwich while he was eatin that he liked it. I thought of somethin I’d read in some book or saw in some movie: “The condemned man ate a hearty meal. ” Once I’d got that in my head, I couldn’t get rid of the damned thing.

It didn’t stop me from diggin into my own kip, though; once I got started, I kept goin until every one of those cheese-n-cracker things were gone, and I drank a whole bottle of Pepsi as well. Once or twice I found myself wonderin if most executioners have good appetites on the days when they have to do their job. It’s funny what a person’s mind will get up to when that person’s nervin herself up to do somethin, isn’t it?

The sun broke through the clouds just as we were finishin up. I thought of what Vera’d told me that mornin, looked down at my watch, and smiled. It was three o’clock, right on the button. About that same time, Dave Pelletier—he delivered mail on the island back in those days—drove back toward town, hell bent for election and pullin a long rooster-tail of dust behind him. I didn’t see another car on East Lane until long after dark.

I put the plates and my empty soda bottle on the tray, scoochin down to do it, n before I could stand up, Joe done somethin he hadn’t done in years: put one of his hands on the back of my neck n give me a kiss. I’ve had better; his breath was all booze n onion n salami and he hadn’t shaved, but it was a kiss just the same, and nothing mean or half-assed or peckish about it. It was just a nice kiss, n I couldn’t remember the last time he’d give me one. I closed my eyes n let him do it. I remember that —closin my eyes and feelin his lips on mine and the sun on my forehead. One was as warm n nice as the other.